CANDID REFERENCE: 9-step link-rot mitigation plan — archive on capture, verbatim quote, persistent IDs, quarterly check

Empirical assumption: any web citation has a meaningful probability of breaking within 5 years (Zittrain 2014, NYT 15-year half-life — Link rot: NYT external links 1996-2019 show ~15-year half-life; 13% of "live" links no longer point to original content).

The 9-step Candid link-rot mitigation plan

1. Capture an archive snapshot at citation time — archive.org Save Page Now, Perma.cc. Store the archive URL alongside the original.
2. Prefer persistent identifiers: DOIs, ISBNs, government document numbers, regulatory filing IDs.
3. Cite the most stable host: Wikipedia (revision permalink), .gov, .edu, established publishers.
4. Quote the source verbatim, don't just link. A ≤25-word direct quote in the citation means the claim survives link death and can be searched in archives. Highest-leverage practice.
5. Quarterly automated link-checker on the KB.
6. Quarterly manual spot-check of high-importance citations.
7. Own-domain mirror (PDF) of critical external sources where copyright/fair-use permits.
8. Date every citation ("as of May 2026" / "retrieved May 2026").
9. Update dateModified in structured data when sources are re-verified or replaced.

Self-published research outputs

Get a DOI (free via Zenodo) for any Candid-authored research artifact (white papers, downloadable reports, methodology documents). The DOI persists even if the original URL changes.

Why verbatim quote is the highest-leverage step

When a URL dies, a footnote like "Source: example.com/article-123" leaves no recovery path. A footnote like "Per BBC §3.2.2: 'All BBC output...must be well sourced, based on sound evidence, thoroughly tested.' (BBC Editorial Guidelines, 2019 ed.)" is searchable in any archive even if the URL is gone. The verbatim quote is the durability layer; the URL is the convenience layer.